Her Way: A No depression prequel
by swartzvald
Summary: Shampoo learns about karma.                                Because sombody asked, the ShampooMousse fight. kind of falls apart at the end.


Her Way: a No Depression one-shot

Takes place one week before the main story.

I do not own Ranma ½

Mousse seethed. His head hurt and he was angrier than he had even thought possible. She still rejected him, that_ bitch._ Ranma had finally made up his mind and asked Akane to marry him. He had naturally assumed that this would cause Shampoo to be more receptive to his advances, but she had laughed and said:

"You too too stupid Mousse, Shampoo tell you before she no want blind stupid duck-boy." then clubbed him unconscious with a bonbori.

When he had recovered he made a decision. He had tried it his way, the nice, relatively romantic way, now was the time to do it her way, the stupid, pointlessly violent, Chinese Amazon way. He would not feel guilty, he would not go easy on her, she had brought it on herself. He told her that when he coldly issued the challenge. She scoffed... at least thats what he thought that noise was.

0-0

And now he found himself on the front stoop of the epicenter of weirdness for Nermia and most of the surrounding districts; the Tendo dojo. In defiance of thousands of years of Amazon tradition he did not knock down a wall to gain admittance but instead rang the doorbell.. It was shortly answered by uh, Akane's sister... the nice one, um, Kasumi?

"Hello Mousse, I'm afraid Ranma's not in at the moment." she said smiling serenely.(A/N:alliteration!)

"That's alright Tendo-san, is Nabiki-san in?"

"She should be back soon, she went out, most likely to do something reprehensible, Would you like some tea?"

He sweat-dropped.

"Yes, thank you, Tendo-san"

They chatted pleasantly for a few minutes about...god knows what, really, until;

"Kawikune!" Ranma shouted.

"Baka!" Akane returned.

"Kawikune?" Ranma inquired.

"Baka?" she asked in response.

"Kawikune." Ranma answered in what he probably thought was a seductive voice.

"Baka." Akane replied, equally seductive.

They were kissing as they entered the kitchen.

"Ahem." interjected Mousse. They ignored him and continued sucking face.

"_AHEM!_" he repeated in a _Much Louder Voice._

"Mousse!" noted Akane.

"Huh?" Ranma added.

"Akane-san, Saotome." he nodded politely.

"What are you doing here?" Ranma demanded bluntly.

"Nothing to do with you, I am simply waiting for Nabiki."

"What do you want with my sister?" Akane asked accusingly.(A/N:more alliteration!)

Mousse sighed. You try to turn someone into a duck just one time and suddenly you were untrustworthy.

"I merely wish to engage her services as a videographer, something honest for a change."

"Why?" asked Akane, still suspicious.

"Not that it's any of your business, but I have issued a marriage challenge to Shampoo and wish to have irrefutable proof of my victory."

"When?" asked Ranma.

"Sundown" Akane winced.

"I'm sorry Mousse, but I don't think Ni-chan will be back by then."

"Yeah," continued Ranma "She's on a not-date with Kuno, he probably won't run out of money 'till, uh, what, about ten?" he looked at Akane questioningly. She nodded.

"Damn." Mousse interjected "I don't suppose you could..."

"Sure thing." answered Ranma, "Anything to get rid of that amazon."

0-0

Knock+knock+Knock+knock+Knock+

Ukyo groaned. 'Go Away' she thought. The knocking continued, only louder and in rhythm.

knock+Knock+Knock+knock+knock-k+bangitty+bang+bang+

When she had had enough she snatched up a 1/6th full bottle of 100-proof "sleep aid", flung open the window and made to throw it at whomever the knocking bastard was. She froze when she saw them 'Oh gods, not him' she thought.

"Heya, Ucchan! How's my best man?" Ranma cheerfully asked, pointedly ignoring the amber liquid dribbling down her upraised arm.

'Why was he here?' 'What did he want?' 'Why wouldn't he just go away and let her self-destruct in peace?'

"Wow Ucchan, rough night?"

Huh? What did he mean by that? Seeing her perplexed expression he added

"You look like hell, Ucchan."

She threw the bottle at him.

0-0

Ranma grinned inwardly as he picked bits of glass out of her wet hair, that went about how he'd expected. He had no earthly clue what to do about Ukyo. She was a friend, his best friend, but he _loved_ Akane. So he had tried to get Ukyo to...like him less. He had thought for sure asking her to be his best man would've done it but she'd just looked pained, agreed and crawled a little deeper into her hole. It seemed that his natural gift for irritating people was not an asset in this particular situation. After she threw the bottle at him he'd sent Akane up to try and smooth things over and explain about the fight. (Although "sent" might be a bit of an overstatement. 'Asked politely' or 'begged her relentlessly' was probably a more accurate description. He didn't think anyone, except maybe Kasumi, could 'send' Akane anywhere.) Ukyo and Akane were friends, sort of, and were both girls and Akane was good with this kind of stuff and he felt confident that they would work everything out between them.

Now if only he could figure out how this camera worked...

0-0

Shampoo looked smug, probably because she was feeling smug. She was, as you may have gathered, smug. The reason? Finally, after years of patient neglect and abuse, Mousse had finally issued a marriage challenge. This newfangled 'romance' stuff was fine for these weak Japanese girls but she was Amazon. Not for her was the sweet affection those ridiculous, but surprisingly catchy, pop songs. The sounds of battle were her sappy love ballad. The ring of steel on steel, the thud of flesh on flesh and the dull meaty thunk of steel on flesh, yes, those were HER flowers and chocolates. She shivered in anticipation, she hadn't had a good fight in ages. For some reason great to the n-th power grandmother didn't want her fighting Mousse, but she was at a council meeting.

(a lie actually, in reality she went to the Tokyo game show to see the new DS games[she was totally addicted to 'insert totally out of character cutesy puzzle game here' where she she drank waaay too much Red Bull and woke up two days later a mile and a half outside Fukuoka in an inflatable life raft with a traffic cone, a police woman's helmet and thirty-thousand yen in hundred yen coins)

Mousse was good and mad now. She felt a small, nearly microscopic amount of guilt about that, but it wasn't her fault he was so cute when incandescent with rage. She would still kick his ass but if he made a good showing maybe she'd let him take her out for coffee.

0-0

'Kuno's not that bad' thought Nabiki as she sipped her mocha double latte. He was kind of good looking, and provided you had learned to hear what he meant as opposed to what he was actually saying(something Nabiki had been doing for so long she didn't even notice anymore) he was fairly pleasant company. Especially lately, what with Kodachi having disappeared some months previous, his food had been relatively free of mind altering chemicals, so once the withdrawal symptoms had passed (he stood on the front lawn of his house for twenty-four hours with his arms outstretched, and whenever anyone asked he would explain, in a completely calm and rational voice, that he was a tree.) He was a new man, going seemingly overnight from full-on bat-shit insane to merely pleasantly eccentric.

"So, fair Nabiki, hast thou yet discerned the whereabouts of mine wicked sister?" caught up in her thoughts she paused almost imperceptibly be fore answering;

"No luck yet Kuno-chan, though I am hearing unconfirmed reports of a leotard-clad, ribbon-wielding girl chasing a huge flying bull-thing across the Mongolian steppes, but that could be anybody."

He was still as thick as a short plank of wood though. Nabiki sipped her drink. Of course a wad fat enough to choke whales made up for a lot.

"Hast thou finished considering my recent request?" she had been expecting this, and she had planned on making him sweat a bit before answering, she was about to fluffle through her day-planner and pretend she had no idea what he was talking about when she had a feeling. Kuno cocked his head to one side while his would-be girlfriend stood up, sniffing the wind, muscles tensed, like a jungle predator sensing a change in her territory, then she shook her head and forced herself to sit back down and answered him with a distracted sounding "yeah, ok."

0-0

The sun hung low over the horizon. The time for conflict was nigh. All was in readiness, soon she would be his. A small crowd had gathered, mostly the usual Nermia fight mob. There was Ranma and Akane, arguing as usual, but without the normal malice, a ragged Ukyo stood an uncomfortable distance away from them, looking as if she would rather be anywhere else.

"oh for... give me that!"Akane snatched a camera from a pouting Ranma. "Honestly, why don't you just read the instructions?"

"Can't," he sulked "Mom says it's unmanly." Akane rolled her eyes and replied gently;

"Your Mom's a freak, you know that, right?" He nodded and sighed.

"Oi!" interjected an annoyed Kuonji. "The fights starting."

ooo wee ooo wee ooo wah wah wah+ (Einnio Morricone music)

Mousse stood waiting, sun at his back in front of the Nekohaunten. It was kind of a cheep trick, forcing your opponent to look into the sun. Plus, with the sun behind him in his white robes she could see the outline of his body, as his mother had told him the first, and last time he had ever asked her for relationship advice;

"Show what you got, a girl sees whats up for grabs maybe she doesn't fight so hard."

As a staunch masculinist he was supposed to be above that sort of thing, but at this point he'd take any advantage he could get.

Shampoo came out into the street. She glared at Mousse, squinting in the light of the sun. He looked back dispassionately.

"Get ready to lose Mu-Tsu." she growled in Chinese. He responded only with a narrowing of his eyes.

Both fighters went into their stances, searching the other for signs of weakness. Shampoo charged. Mousse wound up and threw.. something, a dark colored blur, the object shattered on her chin, peppering the crowd with shrapnel, she staggered back, fell to one knee, shook her head repeatedly, struggling to remain cognizant, finally her eyes glazed over and rolled up into the back of her head before she fell forward into unconsciousness.

The street was totally silent, some tumbleweeds tumbled through the background. After several moments the silence was broken by Ukyo a quiet giggle grew into gales of full-throated uncontrollable laughter.

"Whoosh, Boom, Plop," she managed to choke out, with accompanying hand motions. Ranma looked on in concern as the laughter started to take on slightly demented edge, then, much to everyone's relief she started to wind down.

"eh heh heh +whew+ heh heh," she wiped tears from her eyes then noticed everyone staring at her.

"What?" she asked.

The crowd sweat-dropped.

"uh,"started Mousse, who had been checking on Shampoo "Could someone call an ambulance, I think I may have hit her too hard."

After the ambulance had left with the newly engaged couple, Ranma found himself examining the area

"Hey, Akane, look at this."

"What?" she came over to look.

Embedded into the door jam of the nekohaunten was a black shard about three inches long and about an inch wide, on it's surface was the number twenty embossed in white and what upon closer inspection appeared to be a thumbhole.

"Huh." they said in unison.

A/N: yes it's a piece of bowling ball, no this isn't as good as I hoped but I wanted to get this done before school starts, yes, after a long absence I am making a return to the hallowed halls of academia hopefully this time I won't fuck it up. +sigh+.

Anyway, leave a review and receive a gypsy curse!

Wait, no sorry, "or",

ugh, I need a drink.


End file.
